From my point of view, it is most times a good deal to help newcomers at the more complex steps at the beginning. If these newcomers become more expierenced, they can configure their kernels manually. These newcomers are the devs from tomorrow

PS: Some time ago there was a discussion at kernel.org about to
introduce individual distribution presets (to get the user known what
is essentially needed by Debian,Gentoo,Fedora etc), I wonder if this fits there
to get upstream ?

Yeah, not sure what that discussion ended up with, there was some agreement on that forming; but well, hopefully we might see that happen to upstream some efforts, until then we can do that downstream.

schorsch_76 wrote:

Nobody is forced to use the gentoo patchset. Everyone can use vanilla sources. Even from git.

Or if you want to use the Gentoo patchset and just not have the menu entry then UNIPATCH_EXCLUDE="4567" in /etc/portage/env/sys-kernel/gentoo-sources should work.

As i found this Thread, searching for what this Kernel-Flag does, as first hit on Google, i want to give my two cent too.

This flag is practical an its more easy but i think a proper documentation is more important than those flags.

I understand the portage profiles, yes, i use them even myself. Just because of lazyness. There is a famous phrase in germany "If you know how to do it right, you are allowed to go the lazy way"

But its extremely dangerous if newcomers use them as they say "Hey it works, why should i invest to lookup why it did"

If i use pre-compiled kernel and presets and stuff, why should i use Gentoo at all. I can just use Archlinux and use the "-b" switch for builden everything from source, would be the same.

Also genkernel is slowing down boot as hell. I think there is no slower initramfs than the one genkernel creates.

What i want to say, when i use Gentoo with presets, i have absolute no advantage by using Gentoo but all the disadvantages (like compile times). The most stupid i can imagine.

If i would want this, i could just use Archlinux. The only difference between Archilnux and Gentoo, at least for me, is that i can do stuff myself, i can set compile-Flags and use-flags to get exactly the system i want and need. Using presets would be absolutely uselss.

Not to mention how hard it is to find problems if you didnt setup the system yourself and you have no idea what flag at what place caused the problem.

If someone is not able to use Gentoo, he should just learn to do it or use a other distribution.

I use Gentoo to be the master of my system to have exactly what i want and to know what i did. To know where to search instantly if an error appears and not to search "what did the distributor did".

As i dont need this advantage on every system i install, i just use Archlinux on the others.

I see no usecase in installing Gentoo just to brag around '"Hey look how elite i am, i can use Gentoo". Im not sorry if i hurt the feelings of someone

Looking back at the situation before and after the introduction; there has been a major decrease in the amount of users experiencing the DEVTMPFS breakage to almost nobody needing it anymore in #gentoo or on the Gentoo Forums because it now comes as a default and no longer silently breaks people's systems. And besides that you have to do a reality check about what people would do when they first configure your kernel; they are very focused on making sure their hardware is supported, but how many of them check whether their userspace (udev, init system, service manager, ...) is supported for their first boot to work?

If most people need it and only a small few don't; then it is much more favorable to implement it as a default, as opposed to hiding it away in documentation that can be missed. As for the options themselves in the kernel; they are documented, you can press <H> or <?> to view their help...